Deep Future
by jespah
Summary: From August of 3110 and beyond, the Temporal Integrity Commission's denizens reflect on what happened and look to their own futures. A Star Trek Enterprise sequel.
1. 1 - It's Not Really a Reset

It's Not Really a Reset if you remember it

"The liquid scorched its way down, laying a fleeting truce with the pain, the suffering, and the memories that had caused them, providing the brief illusion of relief from the towering regret that teetered invisibly on her shoulders."

She swallowed. There was no sense and no point in getting too stinking drunk until the rest of the Temporal Integrity Commission's Human Unit was gone or she was at home. Still, Carmen had invited them all out, and they had dutifully followed her, even after fixing a massive megaotric event that had seriously threatened the future.

So Admiral Carmen Calavicci plastered on her best smile. "Children!" she called out, "We've all had a disastrously long week. Unless we get some sort of a direct call from the highest levels of the Federation, or Otra here has a vision, take the next two weeks off. And that even means _you_ , Levi." With a little scotch in her, her Leicester accent was more pronounced than usual.

"Oh, uh, yeah," mumbled Levi Cavendish, one of the engineers. He then went back to whatever was so fascinating on his PADD.

"So _this_ is the Tethys Tavern," Crystal Sherwood, the department's Quartermaster, said. "I've been meaning to go. I understand this place has been in business for over a thousand years."

"Well, y'all are here now," drawled Tom Grant, the military specialist. "Carmen, do ya mind? I invited Eleanor to join us."

"Not at all." Carmen peered into the bottom of an empty glass that had held a shot of scotch. "Another, if you please," she said to the Xyrillian barmaid.

The barmaid held out a hand and asked, "Your PADD, please."

"Oh yes, yes, of course." Carmen handed it over, and the barmaid clicked it next to a device just behind the bar.

"Says here," the barmaid read off a display, "that you can have this one but not another until two hours have passed. Blood alcohol law, you know."

"Right. Well, I'll just drink this one a lot more slowly, then."

As Carmen sipped, she looked around at her team. Crystal was chatting with Polly, the psychology specialist. Deirdre and Kevin – both were engineers, and he was part-Gorn, to boot – were both speaking, seemingly to no one, but Carmen knew they were both just using their implanted communicators. Levi was still captivated by his PADD, as Otra, the half-Witannen who could see temporal alternatives hovered nearby. She had chavecoi on her head in lieu of hair, and they looked like flowers. They swayed a little, an act that she had no control over; and turned coral pink briefly, another act she could not control. HD Avery, the music and arts guy, and Sheilagh Bernstein, the ancient computers specialist, were overly close to each other, and Carmen realized for the first time that they were a couple. Senior Temporal Agent Rick Daniels had his arm around Milena Chelenska, a woman he had brought back from 1970. _No, 1969. No, 1968. No, it was 1969_. 1141 years previously, although probably not to the day, which was August the eighth, 3110.

The department's doctor, Boris Yarin, was part-Klingon and part-Xindi sloth, in addition to being human. He was standing at the bar, scowling a bit, and occasionally checking a wrist chronometer.

There were two people missing. She counted again. "Boris," Carmen asked, "where are Dan and Marisol?"

He looked as if she had struck him. "In custody. You _know_ this." Angrily, he walked away.

"Damnation, I must be getting forgetful. Or perhaps this scotch really _is_ working." She hopped off her bar stool and went after him. "My apologies," she blurted out when she found him, poised to walk out the door. "It's, I simply cannot believe it."

"Well, believe it," he stated, "they were working for that group, the Perfectionists, to alter the prime timeline to suit their own ends. It was only through temporal integration that they are alive at all, and can be brought to justice."

"That's true."

"And the same is true for me," he stated bluntly. His Russian accent had never been more pronounced. "If you had not returned early from your missions, and intervened, it would have been as before. I would have pulled Marisol with me out of that airlock, and choked her in the vacuum of space with the last of my strength."

"But now, Boris, you never did that."

"It does not matter in, in my head, you see. I still know that I am capable of such things. She is a traitor and a blackmailer, but I had loved her during our affair. She, I can see now, that Marisol never cared for me. It must be like how it is for a prostitute. Did you know I was considering whether I could keep my job here yet leave my wife?"

"I, I didn't know that."

"It is true. I was also considering quitting if Darragh would have made things difficult, if I had been made too uncomfortable to stay. I was that thoroughly hooked, Carmen."

"Things will be different now."

"I still need to come clean with my wife," he stated. "That part does not neatly snap back to the way it was. Temporal integration does not fix that."

"I don't suppose it does," Carmen commiserated. "Look, you don't need to stay, of course. So go and, and do what you need to, all right? And if she gives you a hard time or if your marriage is over, well, you and I both know you originally got this job as a favor to her muckety-muck brother, but I, for one, don't give a rat's arse about that. I will fight to keep you in my employ, Doctor Yarin. I want you to know that."

"I, I am humbly grateful." He left.

Carmen went back to where the others were. A willowy blonde had joined them – Eleanor. She was Rick's sister and Tom's fiancée. They stayed for a brief, polite moment and then Eleanor, Tom, Rick and Milena departed. Soon afterwards, so did Sheilagh and HD. Otra took Levi by the arm and got him out of there as well. Deirdre walked out with Kevin; they both claimed dates with their respective significant others. It was just her, Crystal and Polly. "We're gonna catch a film," Crystal told Carmen. "Wanna come?"

"It'll be some horrible old chick flick," Polly added.

"No, no, I'm all right. Have fun. I'll see you later in the month."

And so she was alone.

But not quite, as a figure beamed over perhaps a minute later. He approached her. "This seat taken?"

"Of course 'tisn't, Bryce." It was her boss, Bryce Unger, who was the head of the entire Temporal Integrity Commission. "Coming to check up on me?"

"Polly sent me."

"Oh, did she?"

"Plus I know you were flagged here. I do get that info when it's a work night." That was a facet of the Blood alcohol law that the barmaid had cited earlier – one's employer would be told if anyone had, in public, had enough to drink to be considered impaired. But as for what a person did on their own time, even on a work night, there were no restrictions. It was an imperfect law, intended to protect people from the possible consequences of being intoxicated away from home, without infringing on their privacy and their right to do what they wished while in the _sanctum sanctorum_.

"Right. So I suppose I'll go home and get snockered." She got up to leave.

"Wait. C'mon, Carmen, just, just wait a second."

"We're off the clock, you know," she said, and then laughed at that, "of course, for a professional time travel agency, I don't suppose we can ever truly be off the clock."

"Touché. Look, we'll get the Master Time File fixed. Beauchaine and Castillo and Von from the Ferengi Unit will probably go to the Gemara Prison on Berren Five for tampering with time like they did. So that's all going to be settled," he offered.

"Understood. But I now have a departmental doctor who has realized that he's got a killer instinct within him. I mean, I know the man is part-Klingon, but the man is utterly mortified by his own behavior. I wonder if he'll be a safe person to be around. And he wonders that as well."

"I get that."

"And I've got two openings now, and a part of that is because I hired the wrong people. Bryce, I have always appreciated your allowing me to run the department in my own way. I have never liked stuffy bureaucrats or conventional Federation types," he raised an eyebrow at her, so she added, "present company excepted, of course. But honestly! Castillo and Beauchaine were _my_ hires, and they turned out to be traitors."

"Hell, I'll take some of the fall for Beauchaine," he offered. "The Section was leaning on me pretty hard to get you to bring him on."

"Yes, well, Section 31 doesn't have to deal with the fallout," she complained. "They get to wash their hands of it, while we're stuck with trying to put it all back and fix what once went wrong, or some such."

"None of this is perfectly put back. But that's always been the case; we find errors or Otra has a vision of some sort of alteration, and then we all scramble to fix it. But it's always a bandage," Bryce said, "it's never perfect healing. Time is scarred in all sorts of ways."

"I know, but –"

"But this time, you know about it. C'mon, I'll take you home."

"And then what?"

"I'll read you a bedtime story. Now, c'mon, Car."

"You're such a slave driver, Bryce. I half expect you to pull out a whip."

"Don't sound so disappointed, Calavicci."


	2. 2 - The Sweetest Universe

The Sweetest Universe

September 2, 3110.

Temporal Integrity Commission, USS Adrenaline, somewhere beyond the Milky Way galactic boundary.

Admiral Carmen Calavicci scanned the conference room. Everyone in the department was there, except for the two traitors, who were in custody. And a colony alien, who was a kind of mascot and supporter. And a certain young, squirrely engineer. The Quartermaster, Crystal Sherwood, was exempt from attending.

"Damnation," she said softly, "Miss Bernstein, do you know where Mister Cavendish is?"

"I thought he was working on the _Flux Capacitor_ ," Sheilagh Bernstein replied, referring to her time ship.

"No, he couldn't be; I'd've seen him," interjected Deirdre Katzman, another engineer. "I was on _Fluxy_. Maybe he was on the _Jack Finney_."

"No, I was with Kevin and we were checkin' out the _Jack_ ," Tom Grant stated, referring to the Chief Engineer, a part-Gorn named Kevin O'Connor, who was sitting next to him.

Kevin sighed. "Just because Levi works for me doesn't mean he's ever been, uh, accountable." He shrugged. "I could hit the _recall_ code on his implants." He grinned.

Otra D'Angelo, a half-Witannen, was sitting next to him and blanched, the chavecoi – a kind of symbiotic group of biological hitchhikers that resembled a bouquet of pansies – on her head turning pale. "Won't that hurt?"

"Technically," reported Doctor Boris Yarin, "subjects who were, er, subject to _recall_ reported dizziness and fatigue but not pain. At least that is what the latest paper says."

"Yes, but _you_ wrote that paper," the Admiral reminded them. "Miss Porter? Mister Daniels? Mister Avery? Have you anything to add?" The psychologist, the most senior agent and the music and arts specialist all shook their heads. "I would rather not start without him. As for Branch Borodin, well," she smiled a little wanly, "he – er, _they_ – won't do as a substitute. Here goes," she tapped her left ear, twice, in order to engage her implanted communicator. "Mister Cavendish? Do join us in Conference Room Six. Bring Branch if they're with you. On the double, sir. Calavicci out." She did not even wait for his reply, and tapped her ear again in order to end the call.

A few minutes later, Levi Cavendish burst into the conference room with a dumber than a bag of hammers creature, a fourteen-legged procul. It was a kind of amphibious squid, but it had a plate with a slice of pumpkin pie in twelve of its arms. And twelve forks. Levi had his PADD out, as always, and was clicking away on it like a maniac.

The creature distributed the plates full of pies and the forks and then reassembled itself. It was the colony alien, and it took on the form of Deirdre's first boyfriend, Anatoly Borodin.

" _Children_ ," Carmen said, a bit of irritation in her voice even though she was holding pie. "We were going to discuss whether to build another time ship, for Polly here. Deirdre, what would you name it again?"

"The _Elise McKenna_ ," the Jewish-Japanese engineer said, between forkfuls of pie. "She was the heroine of _Time and Again_. Or maybe it was _Time After Time_. I should check."

"Very well. And the _HG Wells_ is working?" the Admiral pressed.

"Oh, uh, yeah," Kevin replied. "Damn, this is, like, the best pie, _ever_. Carmen, you really should try it." He was nearly a quarter of a metric ton. "Trust me," he patted his ample Buddha belly, "I know pie."

"In a moment. And we're down two people. Boris, do you need another doctor?"

"I can borrow someone from another unit. This is, truly, a spectacular pie."

"Mister Grant, do you need another survivalist to work with you? I'm not so sure who we could get."

"Mm, uh, I think we're all right, for now. Really, Carmen, ya'll should try the pie," Tom urged.

Otra had been nibbling on hers. She went over to Levi. "This is the best pie I have ever had. How did you make it?"

"Oh, uh," he swallowed, "forty-nine centimeter radiation band. I think the sugar is sweeter there. They make _good_ pie."

Carmen put a hand to her brow. There was every possibility of a migraine happening. "Mister Cavendish, do you mean to tell me that you have been using the admittedly non-infinite resources of the Temporal Integrity Commission to, to, to investigate the best pie in the multiverse?"

"Uh, yeah. See, see, see, see," Levi got agitated and began jumping around the small room, nearly stepping on his coworkers in the process, "one was, uh, it tasted like old socks, and, and, and, three got me wired!"

"You mean worse than now?" asked Richard Daniels, as he scraped his plate.

"Uh, maybe, and, and, and, and sixty-nine was slimy. And fourteen was undercooked. And eight hundred and seventy-four was salty."

"Surveys indicate," the colony alien finally spoke, reporting the findings of a poll of all of its individual cells, "That the pie from the nine hundred forty-second centimeter radiation band was closest in flavor to pie number forty-nine, which is what has been made available today."

"You mean to tell me," Carmen was now holding her head, "that you made nearly one thousand pieces of interdimensional pumpkin pie?"

"The polls show that it is believed that there are a near-infinite number of universes, if not an infinite number," Branch reported. "Therefore, a reasonable conclusion is that there are likely infinite varieties of pumpkin pie in the multiverse. Ninety-two percent agree with this premise; the remainder are enjoying the pie."

"This is why," Carmen murmured to herself, "you don't invite Levi to the meetings. I brought this on myself," she held her own head; "I brought this on myself," she whimpered.

Doctor Yarin got up – he was human, Klingon and Xindi sloth – and touched her temples. "Bad throbbing, yes, we should adjourn soon, yes?"

"Why is this the best pie?" asked Polly Porter.

"Huh? Oh, uh, like I said, the sugar is sweeter there." Levi paused. "I should turn off the replicator."

"I'm on it," Kevin volunteered, getting out of there as quickly as he could and jogging down the corridor, gait rolling like a hippopotamus.

Carmen resigned herself to the fact that she had lost control of the meeting and sat down. Absently, she ate a forkful of pie. "This _is_ good."

Otra, who had been thinking about something as she chewed, stood up. " _Attention, please_!" HD Avery put two fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly and they all stopped talking as Kevin returned. "I think this is an important day."

"Oh?" inquired Daniels.

"I do indeed. Levi," she came over to him and touched him on his shoulder. He rarely looked people in the eye, but he did look at her that time. "This is wonderful. In all of the years I have known you, in college, everything, you have never, ever, noticed the people around you enough in order to be considerate enough to make them all pie."

"Pie number forty-nine," he added.

"Right," she smiled at him. "This is a huge breakthrough for you." She hugged him, her chavecoi bouncing and changing to pastel shades of pink and peach and lavender.

"Huh. I like pie."


	3. 3-Calendar Turning Event 3111

**Calendar Turning Event #3111**

 _To: The Temporal Integrity Commission, all employees_

 _From: Otra D'Angelo, Temporal Alternatives Analyst, Human Unit_

 _Re: Holiday Party, December 31, 3110 – January 1, 3111 (old-style calendar)_

 _Where: D'Angelo Family Villa, Siena, Tuscany, Italy, Earth_

 _Dress: Come as you are_

 _Time: 2000 hours – whenever_

 _Accommodations: There are several bedrooms for guests, or you can travel to nearby Firenze_

 _Come and celebrate the somewhat random turning of a virtual calendar page on my father's home world!_

 _Please RSVP, and let me know if you are bringing a guest so that I can alert Security._

 _Hope to see you then!_

=/\=

They had all gotten the gracious invitation, and many of them had accepted, although Sheilagh and HD were celebrating on their own, and Rick was taking Milena out and they were double dating with Tom and Rick's sister, Eleanor. Plus Deirdre and Bruce were out and the rumor in the Human Unit was that he was taking her to a jeweler's and was going to get on one knee and all that that entailed.

So Kevin O'Connor, and his girl, a Calafan engineer named Yilta who worked in the Calafan Unit, were tasked with transporting nearly everyone else from the Temporal Integrity Commission's headquarters on the _USS Adrenaline_ to Otra's coordinates.

They transported group after group, all laden with gifts for their generous and gracious human-Witannen hybrid hostess. Yilta finally looked up. "Yanno," she said, an almost Irish brogue-sounding accent that betrayed origins on Lafa V, "I could swear the transporter's workin' faster than normal."

"Huh," Kevin replied, his massive bulk making it a bit difficult for him to maneuver in tight spaces. "Let's see." He punched up the records. "Well, I'll be damned, Darlin'. You're right. Everything's about 10% faster. I wonder why that is."

"The feller that does all the glarin' 'n starin'," she commented, referring to Engineer Levi Cavendish, "I bet he's behind it."

"Maybe it's Levi Cavendish. Eh," he scratched his scaly head, "probably. But yanno," he put his arms around her, as they were temporarily alone, "we now have a little time to ourselves." She put her mottled silver arms around him and they kissed. "So, you, me, and my office?"

"With the whole o' the Milky Way starin' at us?" Kevin's office had a view of the Milky Way galaxy, as the ship was situated just outside the galactic barrier.

"They are how many light-years away, you silly goose?"

"What's a goose?" she asked. "We don't have 'em. Don't tell me they're like _prako_ , dumber 'n the carpets." She pretended to be annoyed.

He was about to answer her when the door swished open. It was his boss, Admiral Carmen Calavicci, and Levi himself. Carmen was laden with some bags and boxes, and Levi was clicking away on his PADD and nearly walked into a wall.

" _Levi_!" Kevin bellowed.

"Oh, uh, yeah?"

"Help Carmen," Kevin commanded.

"Oh, uh, yeah." He took an envelope from her and went back to his PADD.

"Ya might wanna help her more 'n that," Yilta suggested.

"Oh, uh, okay." This time, at least, he took a few boxes from her. "What are these?"

"Do you not recall, Mister Cavendish," Carmen explained, and there was a little exasperation in her British-accented voice, "that we passed around information for a few weeks after the invitation was extended? Hell, Kevin here had you hack into Otra's preferences on just about any retailer. Everyone's giving her a hostess gift of something on one or more of her wish lists." She glared at him. "Don't tell me you didn't get her anything; you've been reminded every day for weeks."

"Oh, uh," he shifted from foot to foot. "Can't I just replicate something?"

Carmen put her burdens down on a transporter pad and approached him. He stepped back, a slight _pas de deux_ between them. Finally, she just threw her hands up at him and yelled _, "IO giuro, Levi, ora sta per essere la morte di me!" I swear, Levi, you're going to be the death of me!_

"Uh, is that bad?" Levi asked, not bothering to get the sentence translated.

Yilta tapped on the implanted communicator in her left ear and listened to the translation. "Yeah, that's not so good."

Kevin glanced up at the wall chronometer. "I better send you kids out," he announced, "time's a wastin' and I know you said no time ships, Carmen."

"Right," she confirmed, "Levi, come on. While we're there, I will, I suppose, explain to you why making a personal effort is what's required."

"Oh, um, okay."

The two travelers positioned themselves on the pad, with the boxes between them. "Energize, Mister O'Connor," Carmen commanded.

Once they had disappeared, Kevin turned to Yilta. "So, my office?"

She looked at the console. "Ya might wanna belay that." She pointed at the screen. "We got no confirmation o' arrival."

"Damn!" He fiddled with controls and so did she. "Levi, what the _hell_ did you do to the transporters?"

=/\=

For Levi and Carmen, the transport felt odd. They didn't hear the familiar wind chimes-type of sound. They didn't feel as tingly and slightly itchy as they usually would have. Instead, they were lurched, it seemed.

Carmen looked around. Levi was next to her, as were the boxes, and they all appeared to be normal. But everything else in the transporter room seemed stationary. Yilta and Kevin were not moving. "We didn't go," she finally commented.

"Huh?" He looked up. "Oh, grid's down," he reported. His PADD's screen had gone black.

Carmen checked her own PADD, with a similar result. She hopped off the transporter pad. "Mister O'Connor! Yilta!" Even standing next to the two of them, and shouting, did no good. She checked for a pulse. "Do you know what a resting pulse is supposed to be for a full-blooded Calafan?"

"Huh?"

"Never mind, I'll – damnation, I can't even look up that bit of trivia." She looked at Levi. "This seems like something familiar."

"Oh? It's, um, I temporally interphased the transporter. Looks like it got inverted." He went back to his PADD and clicked away on it to try to get it to work again, oblivious.

" _What_? Levi," Carmen fought to maintain some degree of composure, "this is a bit like Scalosian water. We're going faster than everyone else is. I doubt that they can see or hear us at all," she indicated Kevin and Yilta, who had barely moved.

"Huh. All they gotta do is invert the coupler." He started tapping on his PADD. "It doesn't work."

"Of course it doesn't work! It isn't temporally interphased. Levi," she said, "the only things that are temporally interphased appear to be ourselves and Otra's hostess gifts."

"Huh, that's kinda interesting."

"It's more than a little bit disquieting," she gritted her teeth as she delivered the bad news; "this is the only food. Do you understand that? And unless those two people can figure out what the devil's going on, you and I are," she sighed and massaged her temples, "stuck here."

"Oh. Uh, didn't think that would happen."

"I don't suppose you would have!" she yelled, and then she dialed it back several notches. She looked at him. "May I inquire as to what you thought you were doing?"

"I made the transporter faster."

"Because a fraction of minute isn't fast enough?"

"Well, um, it was a problem and I solved it." He looked at her proudly. "Uh, it wasn't a problem?"

"No, it was not a bloody problem!" Carmen patted down Kevin a little in order to locate his PADD. But when she tried to tap on it, it didn't work. "I'm moving too fast to register anything." She put the part-Gorn's PADD back where she'd found it. She then tried a replicator in the room, but it didn't respond to her, either. "We'll need to send a message by some other means."

=/\=

Kevin felt a bit of patting on his person. "Darlin'," he said to Yilta, "we got ourselves a bit of a crisis here. I'm thinkin' it's not a good time for hanky-panky."

"It wasn't me." Yilta went back to running a diagnostic on the transporter to try to find Levi and Carmen.

=/\=

Carmen's gaze swept around the transporter room until her eyes alit on her packages. "Sorry, Otra." She mumbled a little to herself and began opening some of the boxes. "Help me with this. Tear the wrapping paper off in strips, see?"

"Uh, sure." They worked silently for a little while until Levi asked, "Uh, what are we doing?"

"We are going to spell out a message in wrapping paper bits and bobs." There were some ribbons, too, so she used them as well. "We're going to spell out _invert coupler_ and hope they'll figure it out from there."

"Oh, um, okay."

Within the span of what felt like several minutes, but was a fraction of a few seconds, in real time, they had most of the message together. "Huh," Carmen commented as she surveyed their handiwork. "We need a little more. Forgive me, Otra." She pulled a baguette out of its sleeve and used both the sleeve and chunks of the bread to finish the message.

"They should, um; they need to know it's from us."

"You're right. How the devil are we going to do that?"

The two of them thought for a while. "We could leave our PADDs."

"They'll just go into sleep mode if they'll even work at all," Carmen countered. "It might not be too clear."

"Clothes?"

She gave him a look. "I am not stripping for you, Mister Cavendish."

"Oh, um, uh," he squirmed a bit. "We could get stuff from our offices."

"If the replicator doesn't work, and I can't engage Kevin's PADD, I suspect that we can't get the doors to trip open."

"Right. Huh." He looked over the remainder of Otra's ruined hostess gifts. There was a bottle of Scotch. "Nothing here."

"No, no, wait!" Carmen eyed the Scotch. She then explained, "I think everyone knows I like a bit of this."

"You do?"

" _Yes_ ," she intoned. "I'll leave this. And I'll leave it opened. Then it'll be obvious that at least I'm still in the transporter room." She broke the seals on the bottle. "Here's mud in your eye."

"Huh?"

She upended the bottle and took a healthy snort. She brandished it at him. "Hair of the dog, for your troubles?"

"My mother says that stuff is the devil's own water."

"Your mother is, uh," Carmen thought better of what she was about to say, and replaced the cap on the bottle. "She has her opinions, and I'll wager they're rather strong ones. Was it difficult growing up, just the two of you?" She placed the bottle on the transporter console so that it would be noticed.

"Huh? Um, a bit, I guess."

They were quiet for several minutes. "It's a bit frightening," Carmen admitted, "to think that they are _right there_ , and we are here, and they have no idea."

"Uh, yeah."

"If we don't catch their attention," Carmen explained, "the only food we have is the Scotch and the baguette. We wouldn't last a week."

"It, uh, they won't be that slow."

They waited another two hours, or at least it felt that way.

=/\=

"I can't find anything," Yilta complained.

"Do you smell booze?" Kevin asked. There was a trill in his ear, and he answered it. "O'Connor."

"Where are Levi and Carmen?" It was Otra. "I thought you said everyone transported over three hours ago."

"I did. But, uh, dammit, Levi altered the transporter somehow. Yilta and I dunno where they are."

Otra sighed. "Oh, my. Let me know if you make any progress, or you need any help. I've got the Vulcan Unit's engineers in the main dining room, and they're taking apart my old sound system. Should I send them along?"

"Uh, not yet. But tell 'em to put your stuff back together," Kevin suggested. "O'Connor out."

=/\=

"It feels like it's close to midnight," Carmen commented, "although Lord knows what it truly is. Tell me, Levi, do you ever think of meaning?"

"Huh?"

"Life. Do you ever ponder its mysteries? Do you think you know its meaning?"

"Sure I do."

"I beg your pardon?" Carmen blinked a few times. Maybe she'd had more of the Scotch than she'd thought, or their temporally interphased existence was multiplying the effect.

"The meaning of life is order."

" _Order_?"

"Yes. Life is chaos. My job is to put it in order."

"Truly?"

"Yes."

"But Mister Cavendish," Carmen stated, "I don't mean to insult you, but surely you are abundantly aware, that you are likely the most disorganized person I or anyone else has ever known."

"That's why I have to put things in order. I have to make sense out of them. When I do that, when everybody does that, the universe will end."

"Uh, not to derail your plans, but I am suspecting that the end of the universe is a somewhat, well, it's a bit of a negative goal, is it not? Wouldn't you just end everyone's existence?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. I just know that the Big Bang happens and everything is chaotic and then when it's all organized will be the other end." He paused. "And, and it'll be good. My mother says that's heaven. That's, that's what I think of as heaven, and she says that's okay."

Carmen seriously considered taking another swig of the Scotch. "Do you want to know what I think is the meaning of life?"

Levi glanced around him. He tapped on his PADD again, just to be absolutely certain that it was still not working. "Um, okay."

"It's this," Carmen explained. "Interpersonal interactions. It's contact, at whatever level is appropriate or is even so much as possible. It's conversations, it's first contact, it's gardening and animal husbandry, it's tapping someone on the shoulder. Bloody hell, it's even eating other living things, and, and it's even fighting and firing weapons."

"I don't understand."

"I never thought of it this way before, but it makes sense, you see. It's the, well, it is interactions. It's not behaving like a bloody island. That's life's meaning, and its purpose, you see. You don't need to marry or even like anyone else, but you shouldn't be a damned hermit."

=/\=

"What's that on the floor?" Yilta pointed at the sudden appearance of wrapping paper and the remains of a baguette.

Kevin took one look at a partly-drunk bottle of Scotch that had just appeared on the transporter console. "Carmen!"

"It says here," Yilta read off the odd message on the floor, " _Invert coupler_. I'm thinkin' that's Cavendish's idea."

Together, they worked as quickly as they could. "Okay, try it now," Kevin said.

Yilta hit the controls and they were able to retrieve their two lost travelers. "Aha, it worked!" she crowed.

"Thank God," Carmen said, stepping off the pad. "That was an experience I'm not inclined to repeat. And, Mister Cavendish, you will not experiment on vital equipment, if you please, unless you tell others that you are doing so. That means any of the people in this room, or Deirdre. Have you got that?"

"Uh, yeah." _Click click._ "Hey, the grid's back."

"Ah, hmm, and there, good as new," Kevin said. "I've put it all back. It's an interesting hypothesis, Levi. And it did work a few times. But maybe we'll work on this some other time, all right? I've got everything back to its original state and can send you both to Siena."

"Uh, no," Carmen stated, "could you please, instead, send us to that large department store on Enceladus? I've got to replace Otra's gifts. And Mister Cavendish?"

"Huh?"

"You will also be going shopping. And you will find something nice for Miss D'Angelo. It will be something personal that she will like."

Carmen fully expected to hear some bellyaching, but instead Levi said, "Yeah, um, maybe a music box. Or a, a, an old-fashioned calendar."

"Maybe something like that. Energize, Mister O'Connor."


	4. 4-Happy Stuff 3111

"You celebrate the old holiday?" HD asked.

"Sure," Sheilagh replied. She retrieved a nine-branched candelabrum from a cabinet and two candles.

"There's no tree, babe."

"Jews don't do the tree thing."

"Oh."

"What were your Christmases like when you were a kid?" she asked while setting up.

"Mom would yell for me and Dad. She'd go, ' _Big Hank! Little Hank_!' and we came running for ham. Then she'd go downstairs and look at the trains we'd set up."

"No ham _chez_ Bernstein. I replicated turkey."

"I got no trains, babe."

She kissed him. "That's okay. Happy, uh, stuff."

"Happy stuff."


	5. 5-Meeting of the Minds

Meeting of the Minds

They sat in the _Flux Capacitor_ together, tension spreading.

 _Fluxy_ was a time ship, but it wasn't being used for that particular purpose. Instead, it was just being used for straight transportation. Levi Cavendish piloted as Otra D'Angelo sat next to him. She was half-Witannen, with flower-like chavecoi growing out of her scalp instead of hair. They could detect mood, and they were waving around something fierce and mainly changing to weird earth tones as she drummed her fingers on the console. There was a small box in her lap.

"Levi," she broke the silence, "are you sure your mother knows I'm coming with you?"

"Uh, um, what?" He fiddled with controls on the ship. "Heh, we should go back fifteen minutes. That way, we wouldn't be late."

"Are we gonna be late?" Otra's voice was tense.

"Um, maybe a little."

"Then maybe we _should_ go back in time." She thought for a moment. "Actually, I think that would be a big-time misuse of the equipment. Not that this whole trip isn't much better. How, exactly, did you convince Carmen to let us take _Fluxy_ out for a non-temporal spin?"

"Shakedown cruise with the new dark matter converter." There was a chronometer on the ship's console, and it showed the date – _April the 23rd – of 3111_. The time was _1207 hours_.

"Damn, damn, damn," Otra muttered as she checked the chronometer. "This is so not the impression I had wanted to make."

"Uh, it's okay. It's not like my mother actually thinks I'll ever be on time for, like, anything."

"Still!" Otra thought of something. "Did you tell her who I am?" And, she thought, that they had kinda, sorta, been dating for the past few months, if one could call it that. They had kissed exactly once, and only went anywhere on her initiative as Levi was challenged and overwhelmed in that area. But that was to be expected; social cues and norms baffled him, even at the best of times.

"I said your name."

"And anything else?"

"Um," he shrugged, "I dunno."

The chavecoi turned bright orange. " _Dannazione." Damn_.

"Huh?"

"Uh, never mind. Listen, okay? It is very important to me that this goes well, all right? I want your mother to like me, or at least not think I'm, I dunno, a threat."

" _Threat_?"

"Mothers sometimes don't like it when their sons get serious with someone."

"Oh." _Serious?_ "Um, yeah." The familiar sights of Tandar Prime came into view. "Almost there."

=/\=

Once they'd landed outside of Marci Cavendish's building, they walked to the front desk. Otra said, "Two to visit."

"Who are you visiting?" inquired a Bolian at the desk.

"Uh, Marci Cavendish," Levi said.

"This is her son," Otra explained.

"Ah, yes, he's on the list," replied the Bolian after a perusal of something on her PADD. "And you, Miss?"

"My name is Otra D'Angelo."

"Not on the list. But I can let you in as his guest. Just a second," the PADD emitted a confirmatory beep. "There. You may enter. Twelfth floor."

"Thanks," Otra said. The lift took seconds, but it was enough time for Otra's stomach to flip a few times. "Are you _sure_ she knows we're coming?"

"Huh?"

The lift doors opened onto a vestibule where there were three doors. Two of them were bare, standard-issue doors. One had an enormous marble cross on it, complete with Christ figure. There was also a mixed metal mezuzah, and a carved wooden pentagram. "I'm guessing this is the door to your mother's place," Otra commented.

"Uh, yeah." He pressed his hand to a plate and the door opened – a direct result of him being on the Bolian's list of approved visitors.

Marci was a somewhat large woman in a caftan. "Levi, what a surprise. I knew you'd come home for Easter, Holi, Nowruz and Passover." She then saw Otra. "And _you_ are?"

"Otra D'Angelo, ma'am." Otra gulped and held out the box. "This is for you."

Marci took the box and the women shook hands. "Thank you. Levi, who is this?"

"Otra, Ma. Do I smell ham? And matzoh? And elekai vindaloo? And, um, khoresht beh?"

"Yes, now, who is this?"

Both women looked at him expectantly. "Um, this is Otra." He began to fidget a little.

"Otra, huh," Marci appraised the hybrid woman in front of her. "What is this?" she brandished the box.

"It's some homemade gnocchi I made, Mrs. Cavendish. I made it strictly vegan; I, uh, I wasn't sure of things."

"I'm eating ham these days," Marci explained. "Still, that was thoughtful. Levi?"

"Huh?"

"Set the table."

"Oh, um, okay." He went into the kitchen and started to gather together flatware, which clinked and clanged together, punctuating the air.

"Are you very religious, Miss D'Angelo?" _Clink._

"Uh, my father's heritage is Catholic. But we really didn't do much with it." Otra gulped again as she looked around the apartment's crowded living room. There were symbols of perhaps as many religions as there were worlds in the Federation. There was a painting of the Last Supper, on black velvet, and Otra had the feeling that Marci Cavendish didn't see that as at all ironic. There was a tallis – the Hebrew prayer shawl – artfully hanging over poles in a corner and twisted together with what looked like a woman's hijab. In counterpoint to the velvet painting there was a large _IDIC_ sculpture done in aluminoplastic. Bajoran religious symbols clashed with Cardassian ones, over Xyrillian, Enolian and Imvari images. It was a mishmash of iconography.

"And your mother?" _Clang_.

"Even less, actually, ma'am."

"Ma? Where's the glasses?"

"In the pantry, like they've been since you were two years old."

"Oh."

"Your mother does not believe in God?" The statement seemed to be a cross between an accusation and a statement of disbelief, as if Marci could not believe that such a condition could be possible.

"I can't speak for her beliefs, ma'am." Otra shifted from foot to foot.

"And you shouldn't," Marci allowed. "Tell me, what do _you_ believe?"

 _I believe I've never been more uncomfortable,_ Otra thought, but she said, "I, uh, I believe that there's, well, there's goodness in everyone, and in pretty much everything. I, uh, I believe that everyone can be forgiven, and everyone is, well, they're redeemable."

Levi came over, holding a cup. He put a hand on Otra's arm. "I believe that Otra is the best person I have ever met, Ma. Where do you keep more of these? This was the only clean one I found."

"Uh, check the sanitizer, Levi."

"Uh, thanks." He left, as abruptly as he'd entered the living room.

"When you get married," Marci said to Otra, "don't have more than one officiant. It just makes everything take longer."

"Uh, I'll keep that in mind."

 _Clang._


	6. 6-Timeless

Timeless

"What day is it?" time traveler Thomas Grant asked. "I don't know how y'all feel, but something feels; it feels _important_."

Most of them shrugged, but Otra D'Angelo knew. The half-human, half-Witannen quietly said, "This day, 1100 years ago," she sighed, "I can't, I can't put it into words."

Admiral Carmen Calavicci tapped on her PADD until she found it. "February 27, 2015. A death. A human-Vulcan hybrid." She showed the information to the others.

"What good is time travel if we can't, you know, save someone like that?" HD Avery asked. "I mean, it would be otric, right? He would be here, and not there. It's not impossible."

"No," Sheilagh Bernstein said, putting a hand on his arm. "We can't save everybody. We can't preserve the world. The past stays in the past."

"Why not?" asked Chief Engineer Kevin O'Connor. "This is one person. Carmen," he pleaded, "we could promise never to do it again."

Carmen looked out at her charges. "I don't know."

"Maybe we should," Levi Cavendish murmured. "I mean, this would be, it would be epic."

Richard Daniels said, "I wouldn't normally go along with it. But he's, he's special. We're all feeling it, not just Otra. That's got to mean something."

Dr. Milena Chelenska added, "You did the same thing for me. So why not for him?"

"He's very sick," Crystal Sherwood explained, looking at the information on her PADD. "But you can cure that, right?"

Milena looked over her shoulder. "Yes, of course. There are any number of miracles here." She had a Czech accent and it was particularly pronounced at that moment. "I should recuse myself from the voting. I'm too close to it."

"Me, too, seeing as I brought Milena here in the first place," Rick added. "You're both quiet," he said to Polly Porter and Deirdre Katzman.

Polly, who had a psychology specialty, said, "It wouldn't be an easy adjustment. Over a millennium. Then again, you seem to be coping pretty well, Milena."

"I have someone to help me." Milena smiled at Rick.

"Don't look at me," Deirdre said. "I just fix the time ships."

"Well, same here, darlin'," Kevin said, "but I got no qualms votin'. I say what the hell."

"That seems so flip," Tom commented. "But it feels like the weight of the universe is on my shoulders. And looking around at the rest of you, I think y'all are feeling the same way."

"He would know things nobody else would know," HD explained. "Plus, why was he in the 21st century to begin with? He was born way after that. He's already in the wrong place and the, heh, wrong time. So let's fix that."

All eyes turned to Carmen, but then Otra's eyes rolled to the back of her head and she collapsed. She was having a vision.

 _Thousands of people making a splay-fingered salute as an elderly Vulcan gamely returned the gesture. The Vulcan spoke. "I am fortunate. I do not deserve your adulation. But I am grateful. And I will dedicate my newly extended life to peace among our peoples. My mother always used to say one profound thing. 'A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory.' Live long, and prosper."_

Otra awoke from her vision. "I have seen," she reported. "And I know Carmen's decision, even before she makes it. But I won't say anything. Carmen, you have the floor."

The admiral turned to them. "We will never do this again. But we will do it now," she whispered. "Now go," she shouted, and the sudden increase in volume startled everyone in the room, "and do it before I change my mind!"

They scattered to do her bidding. The engineers made sure the time portal was working perfectly. The time travelers put together gifts, reassuring things reminiscent of a long and accomplished life. Crystal put together a blue science uniform from the correct era. Polly loaded up a PADD with literature from that long life. Tom helped her, finding art from the period, and HD found music.

They all put on dress uniforms, too, looking polished and professional. "Are you nervous?" Milena asked Rick. "I don't know as much about him as the rest of you do. I wonder why he was in that century."

"I guess we'll find out."

They stood at attention. Kevin said, "We only got one shot at this. Let's make it a good 'un." Deirdre and Levi helped and the three engineers pulled levers and pressed buttons and read off displays.

There was a shimmering, and the time portal brought one person ahead 1100 years.

Carmen stood in front, and made the splay-fingered salute. "Welcome to 3115, Mister Spock."

Behind her, Levi thrust a small plate into the surprised half-Vulcan's trembling hands. "Here's your pumpkin pie."


	7. 7-I Do Again

I Do Again

The bride wore an off the shoulder silver gown with no sleeves, and leg slits that were so far up so as to nearly be obscene. She was a silver Calafan, and had intricate calloo – silvery scrollwork – on all four extremities. She was beaming, holding a huge cascading bouquet of white, silver, and pink flowers, tied with blue and copper-colored ribbons which trailed down on either side.

The groom had been stuffed into the largest midnight blue tuxedo that could be replicated at Bruce Ishikawa's dad's tailor shop on Tandar Prime. The groom's scaly wrists were slightly visible. His hair, such as it was, was slicked back. He, too, was beaming, matching boutonniere in one lapel.

The audience, mostly composed of their coworkers, included a currently teetotalling admiral named Carmen Calavicci, Senior Temporal Agent Richard Daniels, his fiancée, the plucked from 1969 Milena Chelenska, part-Klingon Dr. Boris Yarin, and others. Even Bruce Ishikawa was there – he was married to the maid of honor, Deirdre Katzman Ishikawa, who worked under the groom and was wearing a frothy peach-colored chiffon gown with a gold-colored head band that seemed to make her face even more moon-shaped.

The best man, gangly and itchy and uncomfortable, twitchy and blinking a lot more than necessary, was pulling at his tux with its peach bow tie and tapped his feet as he concentrated on his sole task – not to drop the rings.

The officiant changed shape a few times, alternating between the look of the current Calafan High Priestess and sometimes like the best man's mother, who was a Wiccan. At least she was _that_ week.

The officiant spoke. "Eighty-three percent of all surveyed believe this is the time to exchange metallic adornments and make meaningful statements. The remainder are concerned about the health benefits of the cake as it has been unrefrigerated for several minutes." The audience, as one, briefly turned to look at the wedding cake, on a rustic table at the back.

"Don't worry, Branch, it's vegan!" yelled time traveler Thomas Grant from the audience.

"The seventeen percent which were concerned report a nearly four out of five scale satisfaction rate with that response. Would you like to take a survey?" the officiant asked the happy couple.

"Maybe later," said the bride, Yilta. "All I wanna say is," she had a Lafa V accent, which made her sound Irish. She turned to face the groom. "I could never be happier." She stole a glance at the shapeshifting officiant, who had briefly settled on the look of the admiral's own boss, a perpetually nervous man named Bryce Unger, who in reality was sitting near the back and eying the punch bowl next to the multilayered cake. "And I don't wanna take no survey." She smiled sweetly at the groom. "And you?"

The huge groom, who was part-Gorn and weighed about a quarter of a metric ton, elbowed the best man, Levi Cavendish. "Rings, Levi."

"Oh, um, yeah." He dropped them twice, and Deirdre ended up giving her small peach-colored bouquet to Yilta to hold as she got on her hands and knees to look for the gold. Oblivious, he stood there for a second until she pulled on his trouser leg. "Oh, yeah."

Otra, a human-Wittannen hybrid, was sitting in front, in a killer red dress with slits that almost rivaled Yilta's. "Levi!" she hissed. "Help Deirdre!" Otra's flower-like chavecoi swayed and then helpfully pointed toward one of the missing rings.

After a minute or so of looking, they found both rings and straightened back up. The rings and Deirdre's bouquet were returned to their rightful owners. The groom, Kevin O'Connor, gazed at his bride. His smile turned to ashes for a moment, remembering.

Otra, a few feet away, could feel his memory and had the tiniest of visions, of a slight, pale antennae-sporting woman who wore a pink and white-striped gown and was in the exact same ceremony with the exact same groom, years before. Then the vision of that woman, Jhasi Tantharis O'Connor, shrunk and faded to a wisp and then blew away, as evanescent as the morning mist.

Kevin wiped at an eye. "It was; it was s'pposed to be forever. That's my family's motto: _forever_. And then, well, you know the details of her illness. Ever'body does, I s'ppose." He looked at Yilta, who was taller and stronger and more filled out than Jhasi – also called Josie – ever had been. "But you don't wanna hear that today."

"I will listen to ya any day, talkin' 'bout anything, Kevin."

He smiled for a second. "When, when you came into my life, Yilta, I, uh, I didn't want to hear it. I thought forever meant I would just go to my grave alone. But, see," he motioned slightly and this time Deirdre took the bride's bouquet and then the couple joined hands, "you taught me something really important." He paused as the entire audience paid rapt attention. "You taught me that forever can be with more than one person. So I guess," he slipped the ring on her finger and she did the same in return for him, "this is _Forever, 2.0_."

"One hundred percent of all voters declare you husband and wife, by the power vested by the United Federation of Planets. A kiss is customary."


	8. 8-I Do Again (and Again)

I Do Again (and Again)

(Yilta POV from I Do Again, see: . #pid47623)

 _Second husband. Second chance._

Of course he's not like Darywev was. So formal, so serious. _Condescending. In denial._ When our baby, Brinka, was born without calloo and didn't make it to see her first week, Darywev said I was to blame. But it was a birth defect. Those still happen, even now, even in the 32nd century.

These flowers are damned heavy. And if Branch changes again, I think people won't be needing the wet bar after the ceremony.

But I digress. Maybe it's wrong to think of such things on your wedding day. I don't know. Second wedding day for both of us. I can see Kevin's got an odd look in his eyes. He must be, even if only for a moment, thinking of Josie. Otra is a little misty, too. I can't recall if she ever met Josie. I don't know.

It's here in our happiest moments that we sometimes think of hard things. I think that's so we do the same in reverse, that we think of happiness when we're in our depths of despair.

So here I am, grinning like a Tellarite who's just heard the greatest insult of his life, walking down the aisle, thinking of Darywev, and Brinka, and even of Josie, who I never knew.

It's all because of Kevin. I never really healed until him. I'll never be perfect. But none of us ever will.

Oh, by the light of Lo! Branch, I do _not_ want to take a survey right now. Not after Levi and Deirdre found the rings. Some wedding this is turning out to be.

I was right. Kevin was thinking about her. But that's all right. It's what he says and does and feels now that matters the most. And here's what he's saying, as he takes my hands in his and puts the ring on. Such a strange human custom:

"When, when you came into my life, Yilta, I, uh, I didn't want to hear it. I thought forever meant I would just go to my grave alone. But, see, you taught me something really important. You taught me that forever can be with more than one person. So I guess, this is _Forever, 2.0_."

And then Branch has to say something. Oh! Here it comes:

"One hundred percent of all voters declare you husband and wife, by the power vested by the United Federation of Planets. A kiss is customary."

A kiss is customary. A kiss is _necessary_. In front of everyone we've ever known.

This isn't _Forever, 2.0_. I got no such qualifiers. This is it.

 _ **Welcome to forever.**_


End file.
